Australia's High Court ruled unanimously Thursday that modifying Sony PlayStation consoles so that they can play cheaper overseas versions of the company's games does not violate Australian copyright laws.The decision ends a four-year legal battle between entertainment and electronics giant Sony Corp. and Sydney-based business owner Eddy Stevens, who supplied and installed "mod chips" in PlayStation devices.

The High Court ruled that while making a pirated copy of a game is illegal, playing a game using a mod chip is not. According to Justice Ronald Sackville, in order to be a "technological protection measure" a device must prevent the disks from being copied, not simply prevent copied disks from playing.

I am sure the ruling will be such a hard blow to Sony and other game manufacturers. They will probably need to consider keeping uniform game prices around the globe. Eventually, they will have to change the way they do business; such as letting monthly subscribers play online unlimitedly, instead of selling games outright which will get cloned later.